help- itinerary planning france-switzerland-Italy -18N starting 15th July
 

Hi All

We ( 2 Adults +1 kid 4yr) are planning the following - can you please suggets if it makes sense

Paris ( 4N / 5D ) - Day trip to brusells or Normandy?

Leave paris for interlaken by TGV

Interlaken base ( 4N /3D) - Go around - is it possible to go Zermatt?

Interlaken - Lucern

One night in LUcern (1N /1D)

depart for Milan ( 1N/1D)'

Depart milan for Cinque Terra - Stay @ Cinque teraa( 3N/3D)

Depart for Rome - 2D/2N

Depart for Venice - 2 D/2N

Depart venice to london.

Now the questions i have are:

1) Is day trip to normandy or brussels make more sense from paris
2) is interlaken better as a base ? or should we change it to explore Switzerland for 3 days
3) Should we buy Swiss pass to move around Switzerland?
4) Entering italy (milan ) from Lucerne possible and makes sense?
5) should we buy local travel pass for italy given we are 7-8 days in italy

5- No to any travel pass for trains at least in Italy - the Rome Pass can be a good deal but depends on what you are doing - for two days I'd say no.

4- I'd go to Lucerne first then take the Golden Pass scenic train or regular trains up and over the Bernina Pass to Interlaken - most folks will love staying right up in the mountains - like in family-friendly and car-free Wengen - eyeball to eyeball practically with glacier-girdled peaks - Wengen is quiet and cute - trains go there from Interlaken-Ost via Lauterbrunnen. Great base for exploring the whole area by train and or gondolas.

No Zermatt is not a practical day trip from Interlaken - and the Matterhorn is often shrouded in fog oir clouds - the Interlaken area has everything you'll see in Zermatt - that is the high Alps.

3- Yes a Swiss Pass can be a great deal - covers trains to Wengen in full and gives 50% off on gondolas - hop on at will no need to buy tickets - the 4 yr old never pays a dime with the free Family Pass that comes with the Swiss Pass - well you have to ask for it.

2- Interlaken is a perfect base and you could easily do a day trip to Lucerne from there - relocating and unpacking packing takes about a half-day. Interlaken to me and many is the absolute highlight of Switzerland - base there and do perhaps a lake boat trip on Lake Thun or Lake Brienz - kiddo will love that and Swiss Pass covers 100%.

1- Normandy is an easy enough day trip from Paris - take train to Bayeux -about two hours - hook up with a mini-bus tour (there are several companies - contact the Bayeux tourist office for a list and to book) and then you'll see the D-Day highlights such as the Colville-sur-Mer Allied military cemetery and main beachhead just below it - Bayeux also has a grand cathedral and Queen Matilda's Tapestry woven just after the 1066 Norman Invasion of England to document in woven pictures that momentous invasion.

For lots of great info on Swiss trains and passes and the Jungfrau Region check these IMO superb sites: www.swisstravelsystem.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com - any questions about the Swiss Pass call Byron at the last site - IU've bought passes from him for years and he will expertly answer any question about them even if not buying IME.

Doing Interlaken after Lucerne means a quicker trip to Milan by rail from from Lucerne - via the Simplon Tunnel - you could easily reach th4 Cinque Terre in one day rather than just stopping for a night in a hectic city like Milan.

Since you probably won't be hiking a lot I'd actually cut a day off the Cinque Terre and add it to Rome.

Cheers!

1) Neither the one nor the other makes sense, unless your hotel is in front of the railway station (Paris Nord resp Paris St. Lazare)

4) If you want to visit Zermatt, it doesn't make sense to "enter Milan from Lucerne".
Go from Paris to Lucerne, then to Interlaken, from there to Zermatt and finally to Milan.

Leave Paris on day 4 at 18.23 or on day 5 at 7.23 and stay the full day 5 in and around Lucerne.
You may spend day 6 at Lucerne and move to Interlaken in the evening (2 hrs journey).
You may spend days 7 and 8 around Interlaken and move to Zermatt in the evening (2 1/4 hrs journey).
Leave Zermatt at 17.37 for Milan on day 10, change at Visp

Do you really want to visit Milan? I would rather go directly to Monterosso in the morning of day 11 and try to arrive at Rome 1 day earlier in order to have time for a somewhat decent visit of Rome.

Swiss Travel Pass, Swiss Travel Pass Flex, Swiss half Fare Card: all depends on the mountain railways, boats, buses cablecars and gondolas you plan to use.

You may have a look at
http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/...-overview.html
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/home.html
http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/en/
http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en

1- I misread - yes either one is easily done - especially Brussels since it is just over an hour each way by train but Brussels underwhelms many folks - Normandy may be a better thing - getting out to a smaller French town - Bayeux and the beach area - I took my son there when he was about 5 and he loved the beaches - rather cool water though anytime.

Think you are really shortchanging Rome - esp for CT - where I understand many of the hiking trails are closed (from other posts here) and not sure what else you would do there.

Also - you don;t seem to be counting days and night correctly.

You should stick to nights - and remember that 3 nights somewhere is actually 2 days of sightseeing.

I would lay this all out and be sure you have allocated enough time in transit from one place to another.

You are not including any time for travel. If you have 4 nights in Paris, you have three days (plus maybe two partial days), not five. I would say you absolutely do not have time for a day trip.

For Switzerland I would base in Interlaken the whole time. It doesn't have the charm of a mountain village, but the central location and good transportation connections off set that. The thing most people go to Switzerland for is the mountains, but the weather in Switzerland frequently does not cooperate and it's a waste of time and money to go up to Jungfrau, or to Zermatt, if what you are going to see is covered in clouds. By staying in Interlaken you can look at the forecast each morning and decide where to go. Entirely possible that Jungfrau could be socked in and Matterhorn not - or vise versa. Or both cloudy and then you could go to Bern or Lucerne for the day. Bern is an easy day trip, as are trips on the lake to Thun, etc. Lucerne is two hours, but that's still a doable day trip and better than moving hotels for one night. Zermatt is a little over two hours each way, but it's a very scenic train ride. If you got an 8 am train you'd be in Zermatt by 10:30 (one change) and then you'd immediately get the cog rail train up to Gornergrat. Go early in the day, tends to cloud over after noon.

Your biggest problem is trying to see 3 distinct places in Italy in 8 days (and I'm not even counting Milan which you should definitely drop). I really think you will enjoy your trip MUCH more if you drop at least one of them so you can have at least three FULL days in each. Right now you have a day and a half in Rome and Venice. Your amount of time seeing anything vs amount of time on the train/waiting for the train/ getting from the train to the hotel is skewed wrong. I wouldn't do the Italy portion of your itinerary without a four year old. With one, no way.

Interlaken is a surprsingly nice city as Swiss cities go - much maligned by those who never get off the main tourist schlocked-up main drag (swandav - not talking about you!) - the Matten section is my favorite with hotel balconies with views of the Jungfraujoch summits from a distance - plus across the board cheaper than up in the hills for hotels.